The relationship between parents' responsiveness to their infant's early communication and its subsequent growth, within the current societal context: A comprehensive systematic review.

Abstract

Review question/objective The quantitative objective of this review is to determine the best available evidence on the relationship between parents' responsiveness to children's prelinguistic and early communication and their subsequent communication development. More specifically, the questions are: 1. What are the attributes of parental responsiveness? That is: To delimit the attributes of parents’ verbal and behavioural responsiveness and directiveness that influences children's preverbal and early communicative development. 2. Do some attributes of parent responsiveness have more consequence to children’s early communication development than others? 3. Is the amount or frequency of parent responsiveness important? That is: Do varying levels of parent responsiveness impact differently on children’s communication development? 4. Are there parental factors (e.g. education level) within the well population that predict or influence responsiveness quality and quantity? If so, what are they? The textual objective is to identify the current social context within Australia, regarding the topic of parental responsiveness and children’s communication development. More specifically, the questions are: 1. Does current government policy on child development reflect the research evidence identified in the quantitative component of this systematic review? 2. What is society’s current awareness and standing (perception) on this topic, as identified through policy, expert and public opinion? 3. Are there preventative universal or selective health promotion measures in place relating to the review question? 4. If the answer to question 3 is ‘yes’, then what are they? Inclusion criteria Types of participants The quantitative component of this review will consider studies that include parents as the primary independent variable and children as the secondary, dependent variable. The textual component of this review will consider discourse and opinion reported or published by government agencies, experts, the public and media, about the systematic review question, that is of direct relevance or interest to Australia. Types of intervention(s) The quantitative component of the review will consider any studies that evaluate parent verbal and behavioural responsiveness and directiveness to their children's preverbal and or early linguistic communication. Studies may investigate parent responsiveness and or directiveness in the context of a home or clinical/education environment. TRUNCATED AT 350 WORDS